Press Release

Researchers at Quantum Nano & Consciousness Centre, Dayalbagh Educational Institute in Agra, have used mathematical abstraction for modeling microtubules in brain as n-dimensional quantum states or n-qudit based quantum Hopfield network. Thus determining that the Key to a Scientific Theory of Consciousness Lies in the Mathematical Abstractions of Zero and Infinity.

Agra, India, April 20, 2017 --(PR.com)-- It is widely accepted that consciousness is the ground of being and is the basis of our subjective experiences. Eastern experiential accounts of pure consciousness describe it to be highly abstract, immortal, eternal, infinite, extremely blissful and beautiful, incomprehensible through mind and ineffable. No wonder that highly abstract fields of arts, music, painting, sculpture or poetry and the highly abstract physical mathematical theory of quantum mechanics are also open to multitude of interpretations. In developing a science of consciousness, it is important to identify powerful scientific metaphors to facilitate greater scientific understanding of experiential states of consciousness.

The highest abstraction in science through mathematics and quantum physics enables identification of important features of consciousness. The defining characteristics of consciousness, namely, immortal, eternal and infinite, imply consciousness to transcend space, time and cause and have a transcendental existence. To bridge the physical with the transcendental, it is important to identify, the interfaces, such as, stillness with time and eternity; emptiness with space and infinity; and silence with cause and immortality. An attempt to understand consciousness through the mind, leads to a theoretical framework that involves extreme mathematical abstraction, which invariably requires zero and infinity.

The mathematical fabric of reality becomes evident at the largest and the smallest scales. Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at MIT, in his book, "Our Mathematical Universe," describes a cosmic vision of infinite time and space and infinite parallel universes, and builds on the extreme Pythagorean/Platonic thesis that physical reality is ultimately nothing other than a giant mathematical totality. He proposes a Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, according to which, our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics, i.e., our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.

The eminent mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose in his recent book, "Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe," expresses concern over excessive degrees of freedom that become available to the system, at the extremely small Planck-scale (∼10−35 m) geometry, in supra-dimensional theories, such as the string theory. The ground state of Planck-scale space is by necessity not localized at any place in our ordinary space-time, and is supposed to be omnipresent, permeating the structure of space-time throughout the entire universe. Hence, at the extreme limit, infinitesimally small particles below the Planck scale, will become subtler, possess infinite potential capabilities and hence, become omnipresent and omniscient.

Quantum theories of consciousness are also based on mathematical abstraction. In an ingenious work, researchers at the Quantum Nano & Consciousness Centre, Dayalbagh Educational Institute in Agra, have used higher mathematical abstraction by modeling microtubules in the brain as n-dimensional quantum states or n-qudit based quantum Hopfield network http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03081079.2015.1076405 [Srivastava et al., Intl. J. Gen. Syst. 45, 41-54, 2016]. The versatility of this novel model as highlighted by the authors, is that it can be used to even model consciousness as n approaches infinity, i.e., an infinite-qudit quantum system with infinite degrees of functional freedom, and its dynamics by quantum mechanics of information states represented by vectors, in hierarchic infinite dimensional Hilbert vector space, over a field of complex numbers. This would lead to subtler phenomenal features of consciousness and enable a virtual coherent spatio-temporal structure, independent of the anatomical structure that supersedes and operates the brain's intrinsic activity.

The worldview of eastern philosophy was strongly based on zero (nothingness) and infinity (everything-ness). In the Isha Upanishad of the Yajurveda (1000-600 BC), a famous incantation appears, i.e., "From fullness comes fullness, and removing fullness from fullness, what remains is also fullness." Infinity was a human attempt to make the transcendental all-inclusive. With consciousness, we become aware of limitless possibilities and nothingness that existed before it and aim to merge into that void of eternity. Since mathematics is the language of science, it is important that extreme abstractions in terms of zero and infinity should not be limited to the confines of the physical domain, when they point to the metaphysical or the transcendental domain and provide a window at the very limits of human thought, for an understanding of consciousness.